"What happened today does not meet the high standards of operations and system reliability that we set ourselves, and that our customers should rightly expect of us. We apologise for the disruption.

"The primary issue arose from a hardware failure in the main database used by the system. This had a number of knock-on consequences that affected the operation of the market. These included a delay to the market open and the decision to close the market early due to ongoing issues that impacted the proper functioning of the trading platform.

"The issues were not in any way related to cyber security. ASX is now focused on ensuring that the market re-opens on schedule tomorrow morning.

"Today, I will be speaking to customers to apologise, and to discuss what learnings we can draw to ensure this doesn't happen again."

EARLIER: A TECHNICAL failure meant trading on the Australian Securities Exchange opened late and finished early today.

Trading did not commence until about midday today, with the glitch initially meaning the equities exchange could not commence trading.

ASX advises that the ASX Equities Market will proceed to Pre - Open at 11.10am and Open from 11.30am.